ROMEO (Still bent over, still with his back to the audience, tucking his kidneys in to accentuate his rear end) A most courteous exposition.
MERCUTIO (COSENTINO is staring at CAPOREALE’s rear end.) Nay, I am the very pink of courtesy. (COSENTINO makes a fist and raises his arm.)
ROMEO Pink for flower? (CAPOREALE closes one fist, brings it up to his ear, and opens it like a rose in the flowering dawn, caressing ever so suavely the flesh of his ear.)
MERCUTIO (With a quick wave of his hand, as if he were chasing off an unwelcome suitor) Right!
CAPOREALE bends his knees, bounces like a sumo wrestler, jumps up, pirouettes to finish with his face finally in the direction of the audience, continues to bounce on his knees for a few seconds, waiting, like the craftsman he is, until all the various tiers have become aware of what he’s got in his undershorts: an outburst of creation, a delightful monstrosity, a gift of nature so extreme as to be supernatural, an explosion of love, a roar of magniloquence, a bang of surprise and joy …
ROMEO (Adjusting his codpiece) Why, then is my pump wellflower’d!
Stuf-f-f is the sound of a bullet coming out of a gun with a silencer. Usually the only one who can hear it is the gunman, because the gun is too far away from where the bullet hits.
Sg-nack, that’s what it sounds like when a bullet hits the frontal bone of the human cranium. It’s as if the bony substance wasn’t aware of being perforated like that all of a sudden, and didn’t manage to make an appropriate sound. You would expect, just a few milliseconds later, to hear a more significant, more impressive sound, when the bullet, now flattened and misshapen from the entry point, emerges from the occipital bone in a cornucopia of cerebral matter. Here, you’re likely to be twice disappointed; for whatever reason, all that comes out is a ridiculous Sber-equeck.
The visual effects, however, are something else, and deliver great satisfaction. The minuscule dark dot that opens on Commissioner Falsaperla’s brow (it’s not red because the blood has not yet had time to seep out) corresponds, behind him, with a genuine fountain of bone, brain, and blood, a bucketful of Commissioner Falsaperla sprayed on the Contessa, the Baronessa, and assorted lady aristocrats nearby. Their summer dresses and faces suddenly covered with irregular polka dots. Clots of brain stuck in the decorations of their fans.
The Contessa, who’s still contemplating the dimensions of Caporeale’s member and wondering if it is a stage member or a real one, feels something damp hit her face.
She looks up to see if it’s starting to rain.
Paino, not knowing what to do, orders the band to resume playing.
The band, not knowing what to do, starts off at the beginning of the program.
While Signora Falsaperla’s screams die down (louder than if she had found Gnazia giving her husband a blow job) the amphitheater of San Giovanni la Punta hears the opening notes of Festa paesana.
Curtain.
ACT THREE
The End of Tragedy
CHAPTER ONE
The Black Silk Sheets of Cagnotto’s Bed Are Unruffled
The black silk sheets of Cagnotto’s bed are unruffled, as if he hadn’t come home that night. In the deserted room, a moan, a groan, perhaps a cry, can be heard.
The alarm clock continues to ring.
An arm snakes out from under the bed, gropes for the clock on the bedside table, and carries it under the bed.
The alarm stops ringing.
The moan, the groan, perhaps the cry, resumes.
Bobo has left him.
He left him while Falsaperla was still going from warm to cold, just like that, while a bunch of people were hightailing it out of there and a whole lot of others were sticking around to watch.
Falsaperla had been sitting there perfectly composed, his legs crossed at the ankle, his shiny black loafers with the tassels, the white socks, the cuffs of his trousers too wide, his hands that were still fiddling nervously with the hem of his jacket. (Probably he was ticked off at Gnazia. Or his wife. Or both.) There was just his head that was bent back, the streaks of blood (which now, yes, were coming down his forehead), and behind, the gaping hole in the occipital bone that continued to drip.
Barone Carpinelli, who had rushed over to assist Baronessa Ferla, who had fainted, had gazed into Falsaperla’s cranium and fainted himself.
The Contessa had continued to fan herself. Falsaperla’s exploding skull brought back happy memories of her childhood.
The Contessa had been through the war, she had. One morning, when she was six years old and still lived at Rosolini, she had come back home from the bomb shelter after a raid and found a dead man in the kitchen, inside the stone oven with his legs in rigor mortis sticking out of the mouth of the oven. When they pulled him out, he didn’t have a face or one arm. In village lore and in their imaginative reconstructions, the man had been mortally wounded when a bomb exploded, had dragged himself into the Contessa’s oven because the door of Casa Salieri was missing, and expired therein. Her father the count had said, “Either we get used to the idea or we have to rebuild the oven.” It was wartime and they got used to the idea. After all, the oven, all you had to do was light it and it was disinfected.
An American airplane had also crashed, there in the Contessa’s house, even though no one had shot it down. It just fell—an engine problem, a suicide attempt, who knew? The pilot, flung out of the cockpit on impact, had landed, decapitated, in the blue parlor while her father the count was saying the rosary. Her father the count had asked the mayor of Rosolini, who was always invited for the saying of the rosary, if he thought that AMGOT (the Allied Military Government of Occupied Territory) or, as her father the count called it, “Ammicot,” would pay for the damage now that Sicily was occupied and could thus be considered an ally. Her mother the countess had yelled at him that this wasn’t the moment to think about such matters. And her father the count had replied, “You want to call the doctor? Call the doctor, so everyone in town can laugh at us. How’s he going to inspect his tongue to see if he’s ill? He’ll go look for it in the garden?”
“Contessa, move back,” Timpanaro had shouted at her in alarm.
“Timpanaro was thrilled to be alarmed,” the Contessa had said.
Timpanaro is a theatrical impresario, very thin and very tall, somewhat looked down upon because in Sicily today theater is funded by the government, and so what is the point of someone being an impresario?
“Timpanaro,” said the Contessa, “what’s the matter, are you afraid? You think they’ll come and finish off Falsaperla?”
Timpanaro had looked at her dumbfounded.
“Yes, yes, I’m coming, Timpanaro, thanks for the warning, I’ll get people moving so we don’t all block the exits.”
Cagnotto, backstage, had understood fuck-all. He had heard a ferocious scream and then the band had started up with Festa paesana.
Cosentino and Benvolio had come backstage without saying anything. Cagnotto was so taken aback that he didn’t even think to ask what was happening.
Caporeale had left the stage very cool and calm. With his legs bowed, because the codpiece kept him from moving too fast.
“What happened?” Cagnotto had asked him.
“Falsaperla’s not feeling well.”
Cagnotto’s mouth fell open. “Even here! Even here he has to come and bust our balls.”
“It’s not his fault,” Caporeale had added, moving slowly toward the tent to take off his codpiece.
“Where are you going, Caporeale? We’re starting up again!” Cagnotto had clapped his hands together to stir the troops.
Caporeale, without turning around, had said, “You go have a look, and then if you think we should start up again, you go right ahead and call me.”
A Caporeale so well disposed, Cagnotto had never seen before, but still there was no doubt that this was as good a way as any to say, get stuffed.
And why is he telling me to get stuffed, now?
Cagnotto had leaned out from the
wings and seen the pandemonium.
There were people climbing on other people’s heads, there were people who had thrown themselves face down on the gravel, there was panic that unfurled like a victory cheer in the stadium, starting with Commissioner Falsaperla and rising up, up, and all around to the very top rungs of the amphitheater.
The band had stopped playing because even the musicians were curious. (Screw Paino, I want to see.)
And while Cagnotto was moving toward Falsaperla, Bobo was moving toward Cagnotto in the company of a ceramic tile exporter from Caltagirone who was famous in gay circles. (He was famous because when he came down to Catania from Caltagirone and wanted to have a good time, he never worried about spending money.)
“Crazy!” Bobo had said.
Cagnotto had looked at him in a state of shock.
“Incredible,” the ceramic tile exporter from Caltagirone had said.
The ceramic tile exporter from Caltagirone looked exactly like Don Johnson in Miami Vice, he wore the same improbable, very eighties clothes (big wide shoulders, the sleeves of his shirt rolled up over the sleeves of his jacket), and he even had hair like Don Johnson (that part in the middle that made him look like a real dickhead), only he was about four feet eight and very cool with being shorter than average.
“Okay, so I’m going, Tino,” Bobo had announced.
“Yeah, we’re off,” Don Johnson had said.
“Where are you going?” Cagnotto, still in shock about Falsaperla, had asked.
“Don’t know … you’ve … got your hands full … here.” Bobo had pointed at Falsaperla with his chin.
“Me?”
“Anyway, congratulations,” Don Johnson had said. “Bobo?”
“Yeah, let’s go. Maybe we’ll be in touch in the next few days, Tino. Ciao. Thanks for the invitation.”
Maybe we’ll be in touch in the next few days? Thanks for the invitation?
The police had asked Cagnotto whether he’d heard the shot, and where it might have come from. Cagnotto hadn’t heard any shot. Then he had answered questions he now couldn’t remember.
He couldn’t remember because he was in shock. The shock of Falsaperla had passed and been replaced by the shock of Bobo.
Sitting on the sofa in his own apartment, in front of the leopard skin, Cagnotto, his mouth open and his tongue out (the doctor had told him not to mix the tranquilizer and the antidepressant), had continued to call Bobo’s cell phone all evening.
And then all night.
Ciao, you’ve reached Bobo’s voice mail, if you want to, you can leave a message after the beep, but even if you don’t want to, hey, leave one anyway, because I’m curious. Beep.
At dawn he had decided to go into the bedroom and get under the bed, and stay there until he died of heartbreak (perhaps confounding heartbreak and heartburn).
An arm reaches out once again from under the bed. Cagnotto gropes for the switch of the bedside lamp. He turns it off.
Then, in the dark, he loses track of time passing.
The doorbell rings.
In the dark he hears a fuss.
The light comes on as Cagnotto is fiddling with the bedside lamp. If he has to die, at least he’s wearing his pajamas.
He takes a rapid look at the bedroom to see if everything is in place.
He runs out of the bedroom and realizes that everything shouldn’t be in place.
He races back to the bedroom and messes up the sheet and pillow on his side of the bed.
He races out.
He races back in and messes up the sheet and pillow on the other side of the bed (so Bobo can see that he, for sure, didn’t sleep by himself last night).
Downstairs, Cagnotto’s intercom (with a piece of balled-up chewing gum stuck on the corner by his name) squawls, “[Yawn] Yes?”
Timpanaro bends over. “Hello, it’s Timpanaro, am I getting you at a bad time?”
“Who?”
“Timpanaro. Signor Cagnotto, do you remember me?”
Silence.
“Hello?”
“Yes …”
Timpanaro looks at the front door. He bangs it to see if it’s open. He goes back to the intercom.
“It didn’t open.”
“No, yes, I mean, what’s up?”
“I need to speak to you, Signor Cagnotto.”
“Can we do it over the intercom?”
Timpanaro goes no with his head even though he’s speaking over the intercom and Cagnotto can’t see him.
Cagnotto hears no reply.
A lady with shopping bags stares at Timpanaro. Then she opens the door with a key.
Timpanaro looks at the door, looks at the lady, and pushes the door open with great gallantry.
The lady looks at Timpanaro suspiciously.
“Hello … hello?” says Cagnotto to the intercom.
“Yes, Tino, I’m coming up, yes, yes, it’s open.”
In the elevator, the lady stares at Timpanaro.
So tall, so thin, his suit hanging on his frame.
“Cagnotto is on what floor?” asks Timpanaro.
“Are you from the police?”
Timpanaro looks at the lady.
She’s wearing a flannel skirt, even though the heat is ruinous, flesh-colored tights, slippers, uncombed hair, and a faded top. Somebody’s wife or a cleaning lady who has gone out to do the shopping. In either case, someone who doesn’t mind her own fucking business.
Timpanaro nods.
“Top floor. But why, is he involved?”
“No, no, signora, it’s just routine business. You know, a statement.”
The lady stares at Timpanaro with, if possible, even more suspicion. “I always said he was strange—too many parties, too much enthusiasm, too polite—and look how it turns out.”
Timpanaro makes a face like, Yes, signora, I know, but what can you do?
Timpanaro arrives at the top floor and finds Cagnotto with his head resting on the doorframe.
“Cagnotto!”
Cagnotto looks up.
“Cagnotto, you have no idea what’s going on.”
All he’d needed was Timpanaro.
Right, it was Timpanaro that had been missing!
CHAPTER TWO
Betty Is in a Bad Mood
Betty is in a bad mood.
Carmine, meanwhile, is in pieces.
They are taking the sun by the sea at Acitrezza, on a platform built over the rocky volcanic seafront facing the Faraglioni, big hunks of rock that according to legend the blinded Polyphemus threw down at Ulysses.
Betty, you can see she’s nervous because she’s applying the tan-multiplier too vigorously.
Carmine, dressed in a caftan, is meditating while he reads La Voce della Sicilia.
“Will you stop reading, you’re making me nervous,” says Betty, her left hand stuck in the crook of her right elbow.
Carmine looks at her.
“You don’t get it. Put down that paper.”
Carmine puts down the paper, continuing to stare at Betty. “They killed Falsaperla.”
“Yeah, I know, I was there,” says Betty, starting up again to apply the tan-multiplier, “and you were there too.”
“I didn’t really believe it until I read it in the newspaper.”
Betty nods swiftly, as if all this were boring.
Carmine stares at her flip-flops.
Betty lies down, careful to align herself with the sun’s rays. “Take off that bathrobe, have a swim, cool down, and take some sun, because you’re all white.”
Carmine, who has a full-spectrum sunlamp at home, is as dark as an immigrant.
“In the newspaper, they have the last photos of Falsaperla in action, he’s arm in arm with your father.”
Betty nods rapidly again. “Yeah, I saw it. They published it yesterday in the article about the party at the home of that director.”
“And you’re having a sunbath.”
“Yeah, but just for a while, then I’ll put on my mourning
.”
Carmine puts his little finger in his ear and wiggles it vigorously. Betty, sometimes she makes his blood pressure go up and his ears get blocked. “Betty, my father’s doing life in prison, my mother’s in the Antilles spending whatever the judge couldn’t confiscate, and I’m not—”
Betty leaps up, throws her sunglasses on the deck chair, and walks off, her ass moving back and forth, pursued by the eyes of several young men.
She hops down the steps, looks at the Faraglioni, sticks in a toe to see if the water is cold, and dives in.
She swims out to the raft, about ten yards from the sundeck, jumps up with one thrust of her arms, and lies down in the sun.
Carmine takes off the caftan, revealing a gym-toned body, and sits back down on the deck chair with a serious face.
Sometimes Carmine—he thinks of himself in the third person—gets an attack of this gay thing, tenderness, he usually gets it when his nerves are shot or when something goes wrong, like he gets a flat tire on his scooter. When that happens, he gets into a thoughtful thing where he stays there and meditates about stuff. Maybe it’s just depression. Right now he’s thinking that if Betty is Betty, it’s not Betty’s fault, because you too, if you were born the child of Riddu the Cement-Mixer and his wife, Wanda, would be a little bit Betty.
Betty, on the raft, snorts.
She gets up again, throws herself in the water, swims to the stairs, comes out like Venus, shedding water all over a lady who’s about to go in complete with her straw hat. She takes a nervous shower to wash the salt off, walks quickly over to the deck chair, and stops, standing over Carmine.
Carmine looks back at her.
Betty nods.
She lies down.
She’s edgy.
She picks up the sunglasses, which had gotten stuck under her ass.
Putting them on, she says, “You want to talk? Talk.”
Sicilian Tragedee Page 19
